Ned Scott and @theoretical of Steemit Explore Oracles on Steem

Today we’d like to explore the idea of Oracles for the purposes of establishing identity and verifying actions using the Steem blockchain. We have begun work on an Oracles system that we are developing for the purpose of enhancing the capabilities of Smart Media Tokens (SMTs), and would like to share with you all why we believe they are an important addition to this protocol. We plan on expanding on the content within this post in the coming months with the release of a new SMT Oracles whitepaper, which will provide entrepreneurs additional information and guidance on how Oracles can be leveraged to enhance SMTs.

The following video includes footage from @ned’s recent trip to South Korea, as well as footage taken from a recent Steemit Inc. all-hands meeting where @ned and @theoretical (Steem/SMTs Architect and Co-Founder) discussed some of the details of how Oracles will work.

Is Steem Working?

The original intent behind STEEM was to leverage that token to harness the Wisdom-of-the-Crowd in order to unearth high quality content and give it public exposure. The success of this design, imperfect though it may be, cannot be overstated. Steem remains the only free and open-source protocol that autonomously distributes rewards to content creators all over the world. The ecosystem is growing, more traffic is going to Steem-powered websites than ever before, and over $50 million worth of STEEM has been distributed to people all over the world. Steem is working.

Oracles

Smart Media Tokens (SMTs), however, offer us an opportunity to make Steem work even better, by combining an SMT with what the industry is calling “Oracles.” An Oracle on SMTs will be able to submit a list of users (a “whitelist”) to the blockchain who have satisfied some type of criteria. Users will be entitled to earn an SMT whose token distribution mechanisms are enhanced by an Oracle only if they are on the list that the Oracle(s) submitted to the Steem blockchain. One example of how Oracles could be used is as a means of validating that an account belongs to one person and is that person’s only account.

This would enable an SMT to be paid out based on the upvoter’s individuality, not their token holdings. If Steem operates through “1 STEEM, 1 Vote,” this system would pay out additional rewards--in the form of a new token--based on “1 Account, 1 Vote.” This is just one way in which SMTs could be leveraged to deliver yet another seismic shift in how people are rewarded on the internet.

One Account, One Vote

One account, one vote (1A1V), sounds good in theory, but is surprisingly difficult to pull off. Steem didn’t use 1A1V because it incentivizes people to create multiple accounts. “Power” within the ecosystem would be determined by how fast one was able to acquire accounts, not one’s individuality. This is why Steem does not, and cannot, use 1A1V. However, the beauty of our design is that within this ecosystem--thanks to SMTs enhanced by Oracles--1A1V can be implemented. Not only that, but many other capabilities become possible with fairly simple Oracles.

What is an Oracle?

In the context of blockchains, Oracles are often discussed with respect to prediction markets. If you wanted to enable people to bet on an event, like who is going to win an election, then you would create a smart contract that is worth something if a certain political party got elected (or not). However, since the event occurs in the real world and not on the blockchain (“off-chain”) you would need someone to inform the blockchain what happened, in this case, who won the election. That person is referred to by many in the blockchain community as an Oracle.

An Oracle, however, is also a term used in computer science to denote anything that you can ask questions to that you don’t know the answer to yourself. In the context of the Steem blockchain, an Oracle would be someone that the Steem blockchain can ask questions such as, “Is this a unique account?” In other words, an Oracle is someone that the blockchain can use to handle a task it is currently unable to perform. This does not mean that simply using an Oracle will enable One Account, One Vote to be effectively implemented. That would depend on the rigorousness of the Oracle’s verification process and whether that process can be gamed. What Oracles on Steem will do is make the creation of this type of system possible.

Individuality Oracle + Superlinear Rewards

If an Oracle can provide an individuality whitelist, this can be combined with an SMT programmed to be distributed to curators based on a superlinear rewards curve, thereby incentivizing high quality content curation.

For STEEM, a superlinear rewards curve isn’t as effective at incentivizing curation because in order to be sustainable and scalable, it must be governed by One STEEM, One Vote. Under such circumstances, a superlinear rewards curve creates a strong incentive for those who have a large amount of STEEM to self-vote and collude, as the more STEEM one has, the more orders of magnitude of STEEM one can earn through such behaviors. As a consequence of this, the distribution of rewards for the entire community becomes a result of the decisions made by only a small handful of individuals, rather than through genuine wisdom-of-the-crowd and contrary to the original intention of superlinear rewards. This is why the superlinear rewards curve was abandoned for STEEM.

However, if a new SMT is distributed using superlinear rewards based on an upvoter’s individuality, then their stake is irrelevant. The biggest token holder (“whale”) on the planet would earn no more from their own upvote than they would from an upvote generated by the world’s smallest token holder (“minnow”). In such a case, the only way for a curator to earn a large number of tokens would be to discover and upvote content that will garner many more upvotes in the future. What content is most likely to garner a large number of upvotes in the future? High quality content.

In this way an SMT (a new token in addition to STEEM) whose distribution is governed by a superlinear rewards curve, and enhanced by an Oracle, could take the autonomous content discovery and rewards system--still unrivaled in Steem--to an entirely new level. Best of all, this is only one potential use case for Smart Media Tokens and Oracles.

Empowering Communities

Oracles will communicate with the blockchain by submitting pre-consensus whitelists of accounts through their own account. One such whitelist could be made up of users who have established their individuality to the Oracle. There is, however, no limit to the criteria and methodologies that Oracles can leverage to generate their lists, and the creator of an SMT will not be required to limit themselves to the use of one Oracle.

Leveraging Multiple Oracles

To see how this might be beneficial, imagine that the creator of an SMT wanted to ensure that their token was only rewarded to “good people.” We know how we would solve the problem of the “individual”; the process for solving the problem of determining who is a “good person” would be largely the same. There would need to be an Oracle (possibly associated with the @santaclaus account) who would somehow establish whether someone was good, and submit their list to the blockchain. Once this process was in place, the creator of this hypothetical SMT would need only to specify at its inception that the token’s distribution would be enhanced by both the Individuality Oracle and the Goodness Oracle. Once they released their token, the only accounts who would receive it would be those who had proven that they were “good individuals.”

Of course, “goodness” is subjective, but the real takeaway here is that Oracle enhanced SMTs can support an infinite variety of social structures aimed at addressing an infinitely varied array of needs. In other words, they can empower communities to an extent never before deemed possible.

Oracle Limits

An Oracle is an account that produces a whitelist. An account is limited to producing only one SMT whitelist. The Oracle is a paid position that is budgeted into the SMT at launch; it is an elected position, much like a Witness. In this way, specific Oracles will be tied to specific SMTs. That being said, an SMT will be able to take advantage of multiple Oracles with a limit of 5. For example, an SMT could make the payouts from their rewards pool contingent on 1. an Individuality Oracle, 2. a Goodness Oracle, 3. an Originality Oracle, 4. a Gender Oracle, and 5. an Age Oracle. The SMT creator would also be able to elect the threshold of agreement required among Oracles. For example, the creator might deem it sufficient for an account to be on three of the five whitelists mentioned above. Any configuration from one-out-of-five to five-out-of-five will be possible.

The reason SMTs are limited to using at most five Oracles is that every time there is a vote on a piece of content, the Steem blockchain will have to check every Oracle associated with that SMT before any SMT can be paid out. This could quickly lead to a large number of database queries were the number of possible Oracles not limited. Five Oracles will be more than enough to cover the vast majority of use cases.

The Real Purpose of Oracles

Our goal with respect to Oracles is not to ensure that every whitelist is accurate. Oracles will provide entrepreneurs with the opportunity to further customize how they incentivize the actors in their ecosystem, but they are the ones who will understand those actors the best, and so it will be their responsibility to ensure that the options they choose are designed to lead to reliable whitelists. Anything else would not be a scalable solution.

What really sets Steem apart from other blockchains--aside from its ability to store content--is its focus on decentralized token distribution mechanisms. The primary goal with any currency is ensuring that the “right” people receive it, and that they receive it quickly and efficiently. If that happens, then all the participants in an ecosystem will be incentivized to keep participating and adding value. That means that the entrepreneur doesn’t have to waste time and resources ensuring that every important member of their community is paid and paid fairly. Not only is that time consuming and difficult, but it creates risks and liabilities for the entrepreneur who wants to focus their energy on creating an amazing application that users love.

Laser-Targeting SMTs

SMTs will add a revolutionary weapon to the entrepreneur’s arsenal: an industry-leading cryptocurrency with three-second fee-less transfers, that autonomously flows to the most important members of a community. Oracles will add laser-targeting to that weapon. They will enable the entrepreneur to install additional safeguards into their ecosystem that help ensure that the only way to win their token is to play by their rules. To date, STEEM is still the only cryptocurrency that is autonomously incentivizing an entire ecosystem; SMTs with Oracles will make it easier than ever to replicate our results and even improve upon them.

How about explaining what Superlinear is. Because it's the first time I hear the word. And the word makes no sense as you can improve on linear. Something which is linear can't be made more linear. Either you are linear or you are not.

Ah, I see. The distinction is between superlinear rewards based on stake and superlinear rewards based on individuality. Superlinear rewards distributed based on individuality is a fundamentally different thing. As was explained in the post, with superlinear rewards distributed based on individuality, a self-vote gets you nothing more than a vote for someone else because your stake is irrelevant. All that matters in such a case is whether the thing you vote on receives more upvotes in the future from many more individuals regardless of their stake.

This is one the reason why I am very bullish in Steem in the long run. I didnt care much of the price because I can see this going to the roof because development like this. Steem is very undervalued. Great update @steemitblog

So, is this something that will be considered as a feature enhancement for the future for SMTs, or are you saying that this is going to be implemented prior to SMT launch; if it is the latter, I can't help but be concerned that this is a stalling tactic on the road to actually releasing SMTs.

Is there an estimated timeframe for the release of them that is currently being projected (as the alternative to Q2 2018, which was what was originally projected)? :)

I just know that SMTs will be so enriching for the community and am very eager to see the implementation asap! The longer that it takes, the more competition EOS and other chains will be.

We will give timelines on our timeline :) Oracles are not a stalling tactic they are a simple addition to the protocol that will expand its utility by an order of magnitude. We strive to build blockchain and crytpocurrency technologies that provide value to entrepreneurs and developers in the here and now. We believe our success speaks for itself, welcome all "competitors" and wish them luck. We are about accelerating the adoption of blockchain technologies and everyone who wants to add value to that effort is welcome. Forecasting projects is a project unto itself, and it is one that is currently ongoing. When that project is completed and we are confident in the results, we will disclose those results to the community. But not a moment sooner.

Hey @andrarchy, thanks for the clarification! :) I appreciate that you guys are being transparent about this! Believe me, I LOVE Steemit/the Steem Blockchain and I think that it will be one of the top 5 blockchains by market cap and I actually consider it THE MOST SUCCESSFUL of all blockchains from a user adoption/effectiveness standpoint currently (as a blockchain, that is). I think that Ethereum is the only one that holds a stone to it and I think SMTs will completely solidify Steem in the top spot for utility/adoption. I completely understand that the most important thing is that SMTs are Stable and Useful, so if it takes the Steemit team more time, so be it. Security and Stability are extremely important, of course.

I know this post isn't specifically about 1A1V but because it has been brought up as a prominent example of something that could become possible with the SMT/Oracle combination I had a question. Do you think it negatively impacts the ability to fight plagiarism and abuse?

Most people (not everyone here though) seems to think removing the rewards from a plagiarized post is a good thing. Right now this works because a group like Steemcleaners has enough voting power to handle a large workload. If we went to 1A1V would there be any mechanism to remove the rewards, be it steem or whatever SMT someone else rewards a post? It wouldn't be realistic to expect to have an army of accounts on call to match each upvote with a flag.

I agree that Steem is working pretty well despite some abusing it to enrich themselves and not help others. If you can increase the incentives to curate it may help matters. I need some time to digest how oracles work. A fully automated system avoids some debates, but a human element may make things 'fairer'.

STEEM is never switching to 1A1V. This was explicitly a thought-experiment about a new token.

Our tools enhance the entrepreneur's ability to easily and quickly design and launch their own customized set of cryptoeconomic incentives and disincentives. It is up to the SMT creator to customize the crytpeconomic design so that the actors within their economy are maximally incentivized to add value to the community which will be expressed in the value of the token. Whether they are incentivized or disincentivized to collude (your assumption that off-chain collusion is inherently bad is fallacious) is the SMT creator's responsibility.

STEEM will be the base-currency of the ecosystem (the currency which will act as the gateway in and out of every SMT) and Steem Power (vested STEEM) will remain the token tied to bandwidth which is the resource needed to transact at scale on the Steem Blockchain.

I will concede that I have a very basic (if that) understanding of the blockchain technology but it did not come across as a explicit thought experiment .Possibly there were discussion before/after the clip which were not shown in the video.

For point 1: so , Oracle/1A1V doesn't apply to STEEM ecosystem. It may be a future non STEEM based project.
For point 3:
Following through with the SMT discussion , for the Dtube coin example : one would not be able to buy Dtube coin on a crypto exchange , rather STEEM can be converted into DTube coin , analogues to how it can be converted into SBD.

Any token on the Steem blockchain can theoretically be added to an exchange; see the Steem Blockchain Dollar. That being said, exchanges will only want to host tokens that have reached a certain amount of value and volume. All SMTs will be immediately liquid on the internal exchange and SMT creators will be able to back their token with STEEM which will create liquidity for their token using the automated market maker logic baked into the SMT protocol. But even once an SMT is on external exchanges, it will still be on the internal exchange just like SBD.

You won't submit an account to an Oracle. Oracle accounts will be able to submit lists of accounts to the Steem blockchain. Whether that list is used by an SMT is entirely up to the creator of the SMT.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. It's a rational solution, simple enough. You have pretty much acknowledged the current stake-weighted voting is deeply flawed - the question is, do you see the common Steem reward pool going 1A1V with Oracles too? I know this is just meant for SMTs, but why keep a failed system around to continue to be abused, then?

As you said, we're not planning to use 1A1V for Steem and I personally do not believe this would be wise. What we admit is that it is not ideal for STEEM to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. It is serving a number of functions well, but the more functions that can be "outsourced" to dedicated SMTs and the more STEEM can be used to serve as the cryptoeconomic mechanism for maintaining the sustainability and scalability of the Steem ecosystem, the more antifragile the system will become. In order to have a system that anyone can join anonymously and with ease, it has to be purely stake-based. Anything else will introduce friction, and decrease anonymity.

"An oracle, in the context of blockchains and smart contracts, is an agent that finds and verifies real-world occurrences and submits this information to a blockchain to be used by smart contracts." -https://blockchainhub.net/blockchain-oracles/

I believe that in the context of future blockchain protocols, oracle solutions will play a fundamental role and will be essential in ensuring trustworthy, autonomous intercommunication between the physical and digital worlds.

I don't believe that one account one vote is the best solution here.
We cannot assume that each and every account has the ability to distinguish high-quality content from low.

The introduction of an oracle system as a solution to this seems heavily over-engineered, not to mention seems to embark down a road towards a distributed identity verification, AML/KYC.

If my understanding is correct then, in my opinion, this would be a gross misallocation of resources by Steemit, Inc and at best should be outsourced.

I would favour a more meritocratic system.
What I would propose is to completely disable the Power Up feature at the smart contract level.
User's steem power would only have one single source and that's through reward payouts.
I would really appreciate some thoughts or criticisms on that approach!

1.) Sounds great, but I'd like to see Steemit finally deliver on one of its other big preannouncements before I'll get excited about oracles (communities, HF20, SMTs).

2.) Do you have people looking at auction theory? Google uses second price auctions for pricing its ad-words sales. It seems like this auction mechanism might also be a nice fit for Steemit with stake weighted voting. This would take away the ability to self-vote, unless ratified by another voter, and it would force abusive voters to split their stakes into smaller (less harmful) portions. According to gametheory.net,

The theoretical nicety of second price auctions, first pointed out by William Vickrey, is that bidding one's true value is a dominant strategy.

This can really be a solution to the "ICO Problem." First mining and the rest did fair distribution, then an attempt at "airdrop theory" by BitShares community (Protoshares!) couldn't hold their ground to flood of massive ICOs, and now ICOs are fading again because of higher regulatory awareness and insane attention competition for any "utility" token, which has brought the airdrop idea back again, and the full circle is a return to "Proof of X" where X (mining) is replaced by "Brain/Participation."

If airdrops are going to be based on oracles, that will be an incentive to cheat, to hire MTurkers like Rhett Creighton did or to participate just enough to be recognized as an individual. In other words, we'll run into Goodheart's Law.

In such a case, the only way for a curator to earn a large number of tokens would be to discover and upvote content that will garner many more upvotes in the future. What content is most likely to garner a large number of upvotes in the future? High quality content.

I think that steemit gonna grow much bigger thanks to SMT and Oracle.
Idea is stunning, and I can't wait for implementing entire plan in system, we all would be happy of it. Another step in evolution, don't you think?

Thanks for the update and progress on the project, I think avoiding abuse is a tough task but at least some effort is going to dealing with the problem... Probably to avoid abuse of multiple accounts, let say, the person upvoting must hold >500 SP, or >1000 SP, this probably would help nullify account creation automation abuse having 1 actor using multiple accounts...It would also give SMT creators some assurance that even those participating has a vested interest but some threshold is needed...

An SMT creator can choose to make their implementation as centralized or decentralized as they (and their users) like. We provide tools that empower entrepreneurs to create an infinite variety of applications which can then compete with one another on the open market. Steem is decentralized, but that doesn't mean that applications built on Steem also need to be decentralized. Value can be found in both decentralized and centralized applications. What matters is not whether something is decentralized, but whether it is good.

Dont take it personal, no hate intended, but do you really think building racism into the platform is a good idea?

I think its a wonderful thing y'all have created here, but the decision not to make the greedy whales stop destroying any reasons for others to be here was a poor one, imo.
The community, ie @smooth and @abit, had it under control.
Now, more than a year later, those same greedy whales still abuse the pool and y'all propose building coins that can exclude based on intolerance who does, and doesnt, get rewards?

Wouldn't these oracles become a tool for tribalism? You already mention age and gender as if they're innocent criteria. For example, an SMT could restrict rewards to white Americans who are NRA members and registered as Republicans.

Great theory @ned. Under one condition.
There must be "meaningful" SMT creators, each utilizing a different combination of oracles.

A minnow like me could create an SMT, but it would have zero value. You need someone who can create a token that people are willing to trade. Only an individual or company that has massive active followers can do that. It has to be an outside force that matches your influence.

You've made clear that you're going to create Good Person Tokens but that's not what I'm concerned about. We are in the dark as to who else. In order for your concept to work you need multiple SMT creators each with a sizeable rewards pool completely independent from you.

Here's my question: what guarantees that you will not be the dominant SMT creator? (that the 2 oracles you mentioned will not be the only source of verification?)

No. It sounds a lot like socialism. It creates an injustice. A disincentive to earn/invest in the token.

A good theory is a theory that works in reality. Capitalism is where economic power flows to people who are productive and make the most money. This is an ideal. "One economic unit one vote" is the ideal.

The point of SMTs is that they give anyone the ability to create their own, custom-tailored, hyper-efficient cryptocurrency with Proof-of-Brain mechanisms. Everyone, regardless of their economic ideology will be able to create a token based on that belief-system and either use, or not use, Oracles to further refine the distribution of that token. These tokens will then compete to prove their value to the market. You could, for example, only allow your token to be distributed to people you believe to be "real capitalists." Doesn't that sound nice? ;)

it sounds nice. but it needs to be battle tested. you guys don't have a testnet yet. when exactly is the launch? what makes you so certain that this system will work as intended? how confident are you in the sheer number and the effectiveness of the oracles?

i couldn't care less about the SMTs themselves but what outside influence are they going to bring into the community? how many new meaningful reward pools are they going to create? with what size? do you guys have big players under the table that are planning to launch their own SMTs?

I love SMT's. My only objection is the quote I mention. 1P1V is not an ideal in any economic protocol as far as I can tell. The reason is that there is no reward for competence. An idiot gets as much influence as a Dan.

Imagine a SMT with 1P1V only emits 0.5% emissions per year and that’s enough to create a highly effective autonomous content curation system. What’s the problem with that? “Ayn Rand says this” is nice argumentative rhetoric but it does not capture nor disprove the collective benefits these distros can provide.

People are not equally competent. Some are better than others and for that reason deserves more influence. The "problem" you are trying to solve will in most, if not all systems be a net negative. You are wasting a lot of time with this flawed ideal.

I wouldn't say that experimenting is a waste of time. AFAIK, both Oracles and SMT won't affect the consensus token (STEEM) distribution directly, thus there is nothing to be worried about, and we will be able to determine which reward distributing system works the best.

Under Quadratic Influence, it’s not simply 1P1V. I think we need to acknowledge that’s the actual basis for bringing up 1P1V. The combination incentivizes quality, influential authors and intelligent curation.

best option imo would be if sp had diminishing returns. I don't think ppl hate stake weighting entirely its just kind of offsetting when people realize that theres only a small portion of the reward pool is even for for grabs to anyone who hasnt been here for over a year

In short, Oracles will ultimately ensure that the cream floats to the top. I think it is great idea and could help return to Steemit an original dynamic that intened for the highest system/player integrities. Totally support this development!

I am even more excited by the prospects of SMTs for our writers community, @thewritersblock, especially with the advent of oracles. I can foresee great things in our community in the future by leveraging the combined powers of both. As writers, content creators and curators of quality fiction the 1 account 1 vote system this could bring will ensure that the best rises to the top and is rewarded as such. Exciting times.

Oracles do sound interesting, although I'm not totally sure how it can prevent users to create thousands of accounts. Definitely looking forward to see SMT launching. Ned mentioned in the video the payout shown on Steemit doesn't correspond to its actual value any more, then I wonder how Team Steemit sees this issue then?

I wonder if there is a way to fund planting trees to offset carbon in the atmosphere ? I am a horticulturalist and I would like to improve degraded farming lands by planting millions of trees -- is there a way to make a blockchain and ICO or SMT to make this idea work?

Yes! Though please, PLEASE don't waste your time building a blockchain! That's what the Steem blockchain is for. It is a free, open-source, hyper-scalable blockchain that anyone is free to use. So use our blockchain. The key thing to understand is that value comes from a community. We aim to provide you with the tools that enable you to tokenize the value of that community. What SMTs will offer you is the ability to create a token that autonomously rewards the members of your community. What Oracles enable you to do is "elect" people who will help weed out "bad" members of your community (by whatever standards that community wishes to apply). If your community is based around planting trees, then what I would focus on is 1. how are you going to lead this community so that it understands who should and shouldn't receive rewards, 2. how to customize your SMT and Oracles(s) to maximally reward your "best" community members, and 3. how you should design the interface your community members use so as to maximize their productivity with respect to successfully planting trees. We will be launching a Communities interface which may be sufficient. This interface will, after all, be designed to be as flexible as possible for communities and entrepreneurs, but you should at least think about what the ideal interface would be. Beauty is that you can leverage the tools we give you, use them to generate revenue, and then use that revenue to build an even better interface that still leverages the very same backend (the Steem blockchain).

thanks very much -- that is a lot of very valuable information for me and I will consider what I can do and then ask you a few questions -- I really appreciate your reply and hope I can utilise the opportunity to benefit all.

hello Andrarchy - I really appreciate your deep thinking here - I am not capable of running this -not technically or intellectually - I am a horticulturalist and wish to actually organise the purchase of land and conversion from damaged to planted with thousands of trees and then leave that to be managed according to my plans and repeat again and again to make a real difference to carbon levels in the atmosphere and provide wood for future generations to use in quality projects like furniture and building etc. --the point is that I need to partner with someone like you who can envision the social media blockchain side and if not you -someone who you recommend .. I am available on davidemanuel100@hotmail.com please let me know if you email me as I wouldn't want to miss it in my junk mail .. love and light brother .. lets make an effort to change the world in our lifetimes

1A1V seems like a great idea but almost impossible to implement anonymously. That is why you have to vote with your ID/passport in a conventional election. Now Oracles will have all the power. Or operators of the Oracles. Not very decentralized. If we look at EOS then top 100 wallets hold 65% of the voting power.. that is not decentralized either. But we will get there.. eventually! :)

Yes, this is precisely why STEEM will never be 1A1V. The beauty of our design is that you can have the best of both worlds. On Steem you will be able to have communities that leverage centralized parties, or not, and every Steemian will be free to choose for themselves which communities are worth joining and which communities are so valuable they are worth sacrificing a degree of decentralization.

Steem is working indeed! To be honest, this is so far the best website with great purpose I've ever seen in my entire life! I thought a platform rewarding bloggers and content writers was just a dream but now it's a reality. I hope this continually grow in an even better way that before.

What will be the new incentive for Witnesses? Steem Power and influence is a very powerful incentive and now that SP will no longer have the power it once did, what will witnesses receive for their efforts in maintaining the network?

See your bandwidth remaining is at 100%, so the SP you hold would let you do heaps more here. (upvoting, commenting, posting).
If you launched distantsignaltoken and had millions of tokens being transacted thousands of times a day, you'd find that green bar would shrink pretty quick.
The more SP you hold, the more bandwidth that gives you on the chain and the more transaction volume your token can support.
You can see it at steemd.com/@distantsignal

say someone has 1million coin of a SMT, but he delegates to 10,000 worthy curators, so that 10K Curators can make an impact that is 10,000% more than that 1 whale with 1 million token due to his/her generostiy.

Possible Cons:

some initial questions, will future SMT be vested like Steem?

then what incentives would be given for SMT to be vested?

and if this feature is say back-ported to Steem to enhance "verified" accounts won't this lead to:

how this affect complimenting SMT.... eg. Appics, communities SMT tokens that are currently being planned, etc.

can there be a crosscheck SMT Oracles between Oracles to increase intelligence and quality of 1A1V?

will there be some limit to exposure, and some individual control to privacy of each person's Oracle data?

i think it's logical that if we can get about 100 SMT going, we can easily see Steem >$20, but how would the dynamics of Steem's 9% vest work....will we digress into a masternode like behavior like SMART (earning big %) or less as more and more weigth is place on bots.

Steemit Inc. mined a lot of STEEM when the network was first launched. To increase the value of the STEEM that they mined, they run Steemit. If they didn't run Steemit, then their STEEM would be useless, as few people would use the network.

No one has yet said anything about how an Oracle would ensure uniqueness. Am I going to be sending my passport and SSID to some centralised EOS oracle service? I'd rather not. How about if I meet Ned at Tulip Conference tomorrow I can have him vouch for me?

Assuming not then something like Bloom seems to be a good alternative. See https://bloom.co

Genius. Adds more to the "mining the human" paradigm, where real world adjustment happens. This can't be coincidence that I have so loved steem. steem has been about the human in relation to the tech. to pull all this off, I mean as seen in this post has shown alot of the "human" side of the men behind steem. Genius but they have so maintained "human" and in today's world, that in itself is gianormous edge because in the entire world of tech, gosh this is standout. reading this post, it just played out "real life", going back to times before govt etc in the small clans and communities where there were no books and they'd have had to figure themselves out overtime, to where in some cases, perhaps the oldest becomes the oracle as they tie the number of generations he has seen to wisdom etc. I see so much fun, so much play, so much attempts at out-of-the-boxness with Steemit inc team and well, so much "human" and in today's world, though the harder route to take, the testimonial harder route and I do feel touched as it is indeed a rarity. steem is reshaping the entire internet but beyond that even oblivious to the world, it is adjusting it. speaking of the approach to promoting steem e.g "involving anyone (community)" etc I see genius there buy especial genius in steem's approach to serve the search engines. imagine a time where every search query leads to the steem blockchain organically, whether through steemit, busy, ulogs, dtube, steemgigs etcand the then thousands of gateways to the steem blockchain, steem will attain beyond mainstreamity, we are talking historical history. speaking of organic, I am a product of organic finding of steemit through the search engines and oh how much beauty i instantly saw. my first steemchat channel, was steemitisbeautiful and reading this post, I so saw it again. till date, no tech oron social network platform on earth has taken cognizance of "anyone", in the creation of the model. plus, none had been able to put "real life" into the picture. however gradual, I love how steem is trying to explore the full beauty of the steem blockchain by daring to go back into attempting untapped routes.

Thanks for the solution description. it was informative but i had a couple of questions:

an oracle submits an account list which becomes part of the decentralized database so that real time validation of the user at the POR (point of reward) is done right? so there is no computing power being used and only database lookups?

assuming that the above point is correct, real time list distribution to all nodes (or atleast witness nodes) is a pain isn't it? it has to be part of a transaction otherwise we will not be able to track changes to the list?

if point 1 is not correct and Oracle will be part of the active transaction protocol. this means that user validity or correctness is a delegated lookup. i am assuming that this is not true as it will have a significant performance impact, isn't it?

Most oracles in the real world are real time rule based which means that simple account white listing is not adequate. E.g. A Medium might have a rule that says "if three experts curate an article, it is a damn good one". in this case an "expert" Oracle will do the identification upfront but the real time rule will not be implemented. Will SMT issuers then have to build a different App to extend this functionality?

I read carefully to get more understanding on Oracle to empower community through SMTs. I love the concept of 1A1V to be implemented in Steem ecosystem. I can't help facing our hapoiness days with SMTs. I really love the way of team members in developing Steemit. Thank you so much.

That would be determined by stake-weighted upvote of the SMT. But SMT creators will be able to allocate SMTs to themselves at launch which would enable them to exercise more (or less) control over who is the Oracle.

These answers are great, and really clearing things up, thanks.
So I create an Oracle, 'Accounts older than 12 months', and I'm chosen as the most reliable Oracle by 10 different SMTs which all want to reward longevity, and use my list to narrow down their potential recipients.
Am I then rewarded with all 10 SMTs, at the rate selected when each SMT was launched, as long as the hodlers of each of those SMTs continue choosing me as their 'at least 12 months old' Oracle?

How do we tweak this process and arrive at OUR desired destinations/ACHIEVE goals. Answering this question helps us stay on track, bring Choas to Order and helps us decide how to move forward with the PROCESS and achieve OUR goals. A Goal is a CONSEQUENCE of the process you follow and NOT Vice-Versa.

So you want to ACHIEVE a Goal. You should Focus and STAY committed to getting the alignment of all the activities right. Then form a Step-by-step Process which takes you to your DESIRED Destination. You follow the process and VOILA you Successfully accomplish your GOALS.

This NOT ONLY helps bring clarity to confusion BUT ALSO makes you super productive and efficient. Then achieving your GOALS should become a lot more FUN and easier than it was before.

THEREFORE, invest in getting the process right and the RESULTS will take care of themselves.

Being a good person never works. But being a RESPONSIBLE and SENSIBLE works much better.

A good person may or may not DO the right thing and could easily opt for the easy and convenient option to fulfill his needs-interests-desires. But a Responsible and SENSIBLE person always tries to do the RIGHT THING and commit to making it happen for the Wellbeing of Humanity.

So everyone should take the REQUIRED RESPONSIBILITY to do the RIGHT THING and then things tend to work out for US because everyone is focused and committed to working for US instead of ME and YOU.